The second of a two-part series examining the impact of the U.S. military
presence in Okinawa.
Part one looks at controversial plans to relocate the Futenma Marine air
base.

At Takae, protesters demonstrate their oppposition to the large U.S.
military presence in Okinawa,
in June 2015. (Jon Letman)

TAKAE, Okinawa — Near the small rural community of
Takae stands a weather-beaten protest tent site clinging to a roadside
covered with ferns. Low clouds blow overhead, and only the shrill cry of
cicadas or the hum of an occasional passing car breaks the quiet of the
tropical Yanbaru Forest in northern Okinawa.

An hour’s drive north of a hotly contested yet-to-be-built military base
at Cape Henoko on Oura Bay, protesters at this simple encampment keep a
mostly low-profile vigil demonstrating their
opposition to the large military presence in this otherwise wild place.

Seventy years after the end of World War II, there are
32 U.S. military facilities in Okinawa, Japan’s southernmost prefecture.
Many of the U.S. bases there are concentrated in the crowded southern part
of the island. The sparsely populated north is home to the U.S. Marine Corps
Camp Gonsalves and the
Jungle Warfare Training Center (JWTC). The northern and central training
areas make up a 37,000-acre expanse of rugged subtropical jungle that
includes the U.S.’s only site designated for practicing jungle warfare and
have played a major role in training since before the Vietnam War.

Occupying almost 40 percent of the biodiverse Yanbaru Forest, the JWTC
has 22 helipads used for training with the
MV-22 Osprey hybrids and other military aircraft.

Rie Ishihara, a mother of four, arrived in southern Okinawa from Tokyo in
1993. Nearly a decade ago, she and her family moved north to Takae village
just as the construction of helipads was being announced. Like other
residents, she’s concerned about noise, pollution, forest fires and the
threat of
crashes and other accidents as military aircraft fly overhead.

Protesters like her are often criticized for being from the main
islands of Japan, but Okinawa-born Yoshiyasu Iha — a retired
chemistry teacher, a base opponent and an expert on Yanbaru’s
wildlife — said he’s grateful people from outside Okinawa are also
committed to protecting the islands from what they view as excessive
militarism.

“This is a problem not only for Okinawa but for all
Japan,” he said.

Iha — whose family survived the horrors of the Battle of Okinawa,
in which a quarter to a third of the island’s population was killed,
in the spring of 1945 by seeking refuge in northern Okinawa — has
been exploring the Yanbaru Forest his whole life. Describing endemic
plants and animals and the pure mountain streams that provide 60
percent of Okinawa’s freshwater and feed the equally biodiverse
coastal and marine ecosystems below, he said its heavily militarized
state precludes the Yanbaru Forest from applying
for UNESCO World Heritage protective status.

“We have to win this battle,” he said. “If we don’t — if we lose
— that’s the end of Okinawa.”

Every day is July 4

Kensaku Nakamoto on the roof of his home overlooking Kadena air base, with photos of the various
aircraft
that take off and land there. (Jon Letman)

Meanwhile, in the urbanized south, far from the JWTC, the Kadena
Air Base occupies over 80 percent of Kadena town and includes a
6,000-acre ammunition storage area.

The enormous base, built on land
seized after World War II, contains the Air Force’s largest combat air
wing, with two squadrons of F-15 fighters and an array of military
aircraft that includes fighter jets, transport planes, refueling
aircraft, helicopters, Ospreys, reconnaissance aircraft and
anti-submarine patrol planes. According to the U.S. military, it is the
“hub of airpower in the Pacific,” home to more than 9,000 U.S. service
members and their families and contributes an estimated $700 million
annually to the local economy.

The military lauds Kadena for promoting “regional peace and
stability,” but many Okinawans see the base as a source of constant
noise, pollution and tension.

“All aircraft at Kadena are thoroughly inspected before and after
every flight to ensure mission effectiveness and the safety of the local
community,” said U.S. Air Force 2nd Lt. Erik Anthony, in response to
concerns over safety.

Kensaku Nakamoto was born in Kadena and owns a small automobile
dealership along Route 74 just outside a high wall that runs along the
runways of the air base. He remembered seeing only F-15s as a boy, but
one day, without warning, he said, he began to notice many different
aircraft flying in and out of Kadena.

Now 42, he can identify aircraft from a distance by their sound.
“F-18s and
F-22s are louder than F-15s,” he said, pointing toward the runways
he sees from his rooftop. The noise from the base, he said, is excessive
and nearly constant, causing stress for his household and for the rest
of the community. He said he sees and hears flight operations, maneuvers
and aircraft from 7 a.m. until sometimes as late as 10 p.m. The only
truly quiet time, he said, is when a typhoon approaches.

Responding to complaints about noise from neighboring Futenma air
station, U.S. Marine spokesman 1st Lt. Luke Kuper said that the military
works hard to take “cultural considerations” into account but that its
forces must remain operational at all times.

Nakamoto is party to one of seven
lawsuits in
Japan that challenge
the noise of military aircraft. He is a quiet man but speaks with
conviction. “We don’t need these bases,” he said. “Take your bases
home.”

Several miles from his house, mainland Japanese tourists gather at a
rest
area that offers a clear view of military aircraft takeoffs and
landings. As Sunao, an Okinawa resident, watched fighter jet enthusiasts
take photos, he likened Kadena to a “driving school for pilots.”

“We see the Blue Angels every day,” he said wryly. “Here, every day
is the Fourth of July.”

Toxic tanks

Across Kadena Air Base, directly opposite Nakamoto’s home, is the Okinawa
City soccer field. The recreational area, which was part of Kadena until
1986 and lies several hundred feet from elementary and intermediate schools,
was closed in March 2013 for improvements. When workers discovered more than
100 mostly rusty,
deformed barrels beneath the playground, Okinawa officials launched a
series of investigations.

Corroded chemical barrels were found beneath a soccer field that had been part of the Kadena air base.
(Masami Kawamura)

With some of the
barrels labeled “Dow Chemical,” officials feared contamination to
the surrounding environment. Stagnant water taken from sites close to
the unearthed barrels was analyzed and described in a
report by the Okinawa Defense Bureau as containing dioxins, arsenic,
PCBs and other toxins. Three independent experts suggested it was
“highly likely” the barrels once held
herbicides and defoliants. In 2013
Dow Chemical said the barrels would not have held Agent Orange.

In February of this year, the Air Force addressed the community near
the site of the excavated barrels in a
memo that concurred with local authorities, stating, “There is no
health risk to the local population from the excavation site; our
children are safe.”

Kawamura, however, called declarations of safety while investigations
continue “both impossible and irresponsible.”

The excavated soccer field remains visible like an open wound in the
middle of Okinawa City, partially patched with crumpled blue tarps and
dotted with orange safety cones. Two shipping containers that house the
contaminated steel drums are veiled behind a green mesh screen that
hides the site, just barely, from the busy city that surrounds it.

Kawamura said the issue of the contaminated soccer field, like
complaints about aircraft noise, are grim reminders of the relationship
between Okinawa and U.S. bases.

“The people of Okinawa are overwhelmed and tired of this continuous
struggle to deal with so-called base problems one after another,” she
said. “The time, energy, money and human resources that go into dealing
with these problems are immense, hindering the healthy development of
Okinawa.”